Remittance of RI migrant workers reaches US$3.39 mln

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The remittance sent home by Indonesian migrant workers up to June this year has reached US$3.39 million or about Rp32.4 trillion, according to a manpower official.

This was stated by Deputy Head of the National Agency for Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers Overseas (BNP2TKI), Lisna Y Peoloengan here on Wednesday.

She said that the US$3.39 million amount came from Indonesian migrant workers in four placement regions of Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and Australia, based on the records of the Indonesian central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI).

The manpower agency deputy said remittance from Indonesian migrant workers in the Asia Pacific region totaled US$2.017 billion, the Middle East and Africa US$1.217 billion, the United States US$135.320 million, and Europe and Australia US$20.224 million.

She said that the actual amount of remittance is bigger than that recorded if the cash taken in hand to Indonesia by migrant workers who returned to the country for a leave or holidays.

The agency predicted that the remittance from about six million Indonesian migrant workers employed in 116 countries this year totaled about Rp100 trillion.

Of the amount, about Rp67 trillion was sent through banks and the rest was brought in directly by migrant workers themselves.

Earlier, head of BNP2TKI Moh Jumhur Hidayat said one of the tasks of his agency is seeking and securing overseas employment for skilled Indonesian migrant workers.

"While the need to meet the overseas employment market is very urgent, the supply of availability of workers is needed," he said in a general lecture to nursing students at the Imelda Indonesian Workers General Hospital in Medan, North Sumatra, recently.

Jumhur said BNP2TKI has a foreign and promotion cooperation deputy to seek and secure employment markets and map overseas employment markets with available domestic workers to be absorbed abroad.

The BNP2TKI chief hoped the various higher learning institutes or educational and skill institutions would hold education for use abroad.

He said Japan was in dire need of nurses of old people and until know the Japanese and Indonesian governments cooperate to meet the need of health workers.

Likewise, South Korea which each year gives a quota workers of Indonesia and industrial countries in Europe, the US and Middle East, are in dire need of workers to activate their massive industries.

He said some six million Indonesian migrant workers are employed in various fields in 116 countries.(*)